Saturday, December 13, 2014

Reverse osmosis system

Checking into this one just now, and it can be had for less than 200 bucks.  Claims 50 gallon per capacity.
Here's another link from Home Depot.

What made me think of the water situation again was that the water filtration experiments that I ran did not remove everything.

Reverse osmosis can get the stuff out that the methods I tested couldn't.  Just run the output from that methodology and use this reverse osmosis methodology and you can get potable water back from gray water.  Still not sure I'd want to drink it though.  You could certainly bathe in it again.  And again.  And again.  etc.

Come to think of it, I don't think I'd use something like this to get water for the shower unless there was a problem with the filtration that I plan on using.  Best to use this with the rain water collected.

Previous   Next   ( off the grid series, subseries about water )


Recap of last week's posts 12/13/14

Let's try the breakdown by category again:

videos and movies      7
how to                       3
sugar observation       1
should u trust conventional wisdom?  1
politics wtf                  5
PHD                          1
humor                        1
politics and financial mkts  2
politics                        2
misc                           1
space                          1
about the blog             1
about me                      1

In terms of posting, the week was dominated by politics ( if you count the wtf's and financials )  and by videos.  In terms of popularity, it is hard to say because nothing really clicked all that well.

This week was light blogging due to illness.

I didn't track any best of posts for this week either.

One thought about that list--- it's all over the darned place.  Need to tighten it up.




Harry McClintock - Big Rock Candy Mountain

There's a big "mountain" that sits next to the dirt road that leads up to da Ranch.  It actually is pretty big, the biggest mountain around the joint, so far as I can tell.  Not that it's bigger than all the mountains in the area, I'm just talking about the neighborhood.

If it doesn't have a name already, I'll call it the Big Rock Candy Mountain after this here song.





A short note about da trailer

a continuation from the last off grid post...

It may be better to use the generator in order to keep the freezer going, instead of relying upon batteries, or the solar cells.  Reason being that the Honda generator I'm considering will operate the freezer, while charging in batteries.  In order to use batteries for the freezer, it will require that very expensive inverter system.  You can freeze stuff, then once frozen, turn off the freezer for the day, and turn it back on again for a few hours the next day.  Batteries and solar can handle it for the rest of the day and night.

Still an expensive proposition.  A grand for the generator, a grand for the panels, a grand for the batteries, and perhaps a grand for everything else.  The total bill for the lil homestead in da trailer looks like it could run about 8 grand.

Update:

Might as well add the following because I don't want to forget it.

The current idea is to place the trailer under the canopy.  But what about not using the canopy for that, and building the solar panel apparatus on top of the trailer?   Lemar Alexander had a video about making a trailer for his solar equipment.  I was thinking that equipment could go "upstairs".  The sun's heat would be off, as the panel would catch the sun.  If not the panels, then the box which holds the batteries.  Or the battery box can go on top of the "A" frame that makes up the tongue.  Alexander put his batteries inside because they need to be warm in winter.  Then, the generator can go on the tongue.  In summary, the panels on the roof, the batteries inside ( somewhere), and the generator on the tongue outside.


Methinks Limbaugh doesn't get it

Reading through some of the news this morning, it seems that Limbaugh thinks that the GOP is full of moderates.

Maybe that's good news and Limbaugh will break free?  Or is the bad news that Limbaugh seems to think that mere words will turn all of this around?  It's not the ideology, it's the lack of organization and action of the conservatives.  They just sit around and talk, talk, talk, talk.  What do you guys want to DO?

At least if you break free of these guys and start your own caucus or party, that could be a start.  But even that won't matter if all you do is talk.


Friday, December 12, 2014

sugarloaf - green eyed lady

Another shameless filler post.  What a naughty boy I am.


This is a good sign

There was more than the usual amount of interest in this post at Instapundit.  A reading this close to 100 is really quite good.

The story touches on a theme of this blog:  Why has progress slowed down so much?  We are in a rut.

It seems to come to the conclusion that we've become too risk averse.  It's a female trait, by the way.  Men tend to more the risk takers than the women.

Taking risks does not require one to be rash.  Best to have prudence.  But you can't rest on your laurels, or you risk something even more.

An example from history that is mentioned in the book Mining The Sky--- the Chinese burned their discovery fleet that could have reached Europe.  This discovery of another route to China would have aced out Columbus' mission.  However, since the Chinese discovery of a way to Europe never happened , the Chinese went into relative decline.  The same could happen to us because we did something similar with some of our programs, like Apollo and the molten-salt reactor.

It's good to see the interest in the subject.


New thoughts about "da trailer"

Previous   Next  ( in the off-the-grid construction subseries)

This post is about the likely switch to the Ironton trailer advertised on Amazon.

  • good connect points exist between trailer and a wood frame
  • simple assembly also assists in simple build out
  • will fit into van, because the dimensions are right, can be assembled on site instead of pulling it there.
  • researching ways to protect the undercarriage--- latest ideas are sheet metal and plastic sheet shims and this that cuts metal sheets to size.
New construction details will have supercede the old ones.  Construction diagram follows:


Update ( Sat. morning ):

Forgot about door.  How do you get in and out?  Duh.  I looked at some sliding doors this morning.  Seem pricey, but would be a better fit towards what I'm doing, or so I would think.

Recapping some basic costs

trailer $500
wood ( wild guess) $500
metal ( cut to size ) $500
door                      $300

so far, about $1800.  Already got freezer, recliner.  Need toilet.  That's nearly a thousand more for a composter type.   Add siding and you're over 3k.  Woof.  more

Update:

Option on the door looks cheaper.  An idea is to use a double door to preserve insulation.

Here's another link.  Might as well include it as a further option--top mounted.  Not cheaper though.


Thursday, December 11, 2014

When you hear that the GOP is afraid of being blamed for a government shutdown...

Don't believe it!

Why?  There is an election every two years.  Obama just showed that he could care less about what the public thinks.  If GOP caves ( and they may have already, I don't know because I haven't checked ), it shows that they don't care either.  If the GOP doesn't care now, why should they care later, as they are promising?  The GOP says trust us later to do what we won't do now.  Yeah, sure.

Even if the GOP is blamed, will it make any difference in their majorities?  Maybe, but the vast majority of the minority will have safe seats.  Only swing districts will be vulnerable.  It didn't make any difference when there was a shutdown this past year, now did it?  The public, if it acts the way it usually acts, will vote the same rascals in that they usually do.

Basically, they don't care and it wouldn't cost that much in any event even if the worst possible thing happened.  So why believe the excuse?

Only if they are personally hurt by what they do will they start caring.  What that could entail is if they started losing in some "safe" districts.  This means that in order to do something that will make any difference at all, you are going to have to take a risk and do something that you wouldn't ordinarily do.  The thing I did was to vote for the Democrat!  Now that would hurt if enough people did it and it cost them some seats.

I don't expect Democrats to do anything like this but it would be great if they did.  Evidently, the Democrats don't mind getting screwed over by their leaders.

If you are a masochist and just love the punishment they dish out, just keep on doing what you are doing now.  If you really really hate it, they by golly by gosh, do something about it.

But I don't expect anybody to pay attention or to care.  They like their misery.


History as Chaos Theory

You may remember a scene in the movie Jurassic Park , where Ian Malcolm explains the Chaos Theory to Ellie.   "The shorthand is the butterfly effect."

The butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing and it rains in New York.  Whoa!  That's the reaction Ellie has, as she gestures that it goes way over her head.

If you accept that this is true, and I do, then you may ask if it applies to other areas of research, such as history.

I've done something like that with my alternative Texas history post.    

The question I am asking now is the same as I asked when I wrote that post--- what if things had gone a little differently?  It's hard to imagine the kind of world we'd be living in today if just one little detail had gone just a little bit differently.  If so, isn't that a lot like the Chaos Theory?  Chaos Theory depends upon initial conditions.  Change the initial conditions and big changes can occur further down the line.  A butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing ( initial conditions ) and it rains in New York.  Or Santa Ana is captured and spared (initial conditions), and the United States becomes the most powerful nation on Earth.  Same thing, I say.

 Furthermore, if history is the story of human civilization, then there's no telling where this ends up.  Chaos rules the universe.

Update:

I did this more than one time as this video shows.





On a collision course with destiny

From the movie, Braveheart, where Steven, who claims to talk with God, warns William Wallace of his fate.






Economy Post-‘Jobs’ Report; Real or Memorex? | Kitco Commentary

Economy Post-‘Jobs’ Report; Real or Memorex? | Kitco Commentary





Good article explaining why the jobs report was bunk.




Judgment Day… is inevitable.

A paradigm shift is coming.---Mac Slavo

Tijuana Brass - Whipped Cream

Wearing whipped cream.  They do even racier things these days, so I hear.  They paint on clothes and go naked.  How 'bout dat?

The Whipped Cream lady is now 76 old and says she feels young.  Where does the time go?


Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Steppenwolf Magic Carpet Ride

A lot of this music goes on too long. This one is no different.  I need to keep putting things up though, so this is it.




Boehner’s Immigration Move Is Terrific: Dick Morris TV: Lunch Alert!

But Morris leaves out a significant concession



A billion dollars is going to be spent on the illegals, thanks to this "terrific" move.



When the dust settles on this thing, we are going to be just where we are now.



We'll see.




If you are mad about the latest GOP cave in

In my peregrinations through the web, I am struck by how much everything ( in politics ) seems so tawdry and false.  I put that politics in parenthesis after pausing and thinking it over briefly.  Too much attention to paid to these politicians is the reason why.  Of the attention that is being paid, it isn't the right kind.  It's the kind that glorifies these guys when they're just hacks.  You need to pay attention to them like you watch a thief or a common criminal.  They will definitely steal you blind.

People are upset that the GOP is caving in again.  What should anybody be surprised?  You voted for it, this is what they are.

There needs to be a way to ensure accountability after an election.  This business about amnesty is one of those tawdry things that begs for accountability.  The election was a fraud.  If the GOP didn't promise to do something about immigration, not as many would have been elected.  Likewise, if Obama tried to do it before the election, Democrat losses would have been bigger.  They all know this.  But they do what they do anyway because they are counting on people to keep on doing what they always do.  They listen to these jerks and then they don't watch what they do later, once elected.

They count on you being more scared of the other guys than in being mad at them for their betrayals.  That's how they control the voting public.  Fear and betrayal---tawdy combination indeed.


Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Next Big Future: SpaceX Attempting Reusable rocket landing on a Flo...

Next Big Future: SpaceX Attempting Reusable rocket landing on a Floating Ocean platform next week...: During the Dec. 16 launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, which will send SpaceX's robotic Dragon capsule toward t...



The amount of payload delivered to the space station by the launch system would be so huge that it is fair to say that this single system alone would transform mankind into a spacefaring civilization and change forever the way we live
 Bring it on!

Not feeling good today

Blogging will be light.  I am just not up to it.  Perhaps I will feel better soon and resume my normal schedule.


Monday, December 8, 2014

This man has a ton of gall

The man is this here guy in the White House.

"This is something that's deeply rooted in our society, deeply rooted in our history. But the two things that will allow us to solve it

 Number one, he's referring to the charge of racism in the killings in Ferguson and New York.  The charges are unfounded based upon any standard of evidence.  But, as one can note, it doesn't matter if the charges are true or not.  It is the CAUSE that matters uber alles.

Obama has a lot of gall to charge racism when he holds the office solely upon his race and his race alone.  If he were white, he never would have won in 2008.  His only claim to office was that he promised to improve race relations, which he has failed to do.  Polls say that race relations have gotten worse under his tenure.

It doesn't help when those who cry injustice are the prime perps of injustice themselves, which the injustices committed themselves are based upon race.  Only the race committing them aren't white, except for their white liberal agitators.


Moving details

Now that I've got construction plans nearly nailed down, I can start to think about how the actual move will take place.

Some questions to answer:

  • How much of my stuff do I want to carry along?
  • What to do with the rest that I won't be carrying along?
If I travel light, I will have to do something with all my stuff that I've got now.  Either I give it away, or throw it away, or keep it in storage somewhere.  Keeping it in storage implies that it is worth something.  It has to be worth a lot in order to pay for storing it.

Also, where will I be staying when I finally pack my stuff and head west?  There's something of a dilemma there, as there's no shelter at da Ranch yet, and the van will be full to the brim, so you can't sleep there.

How many trips?  It looks like there will be at least two more.  It would be best to travel as light as possible in order to minimize these trips.

Looks like there's some decisions to make.  If I leave in late May, I need to start getting things squared away in the not too distant future.


Sunday, December 7, 2014

Limbaugh agrees with me

Okay, he didn't acknowledge anything I said.  As a matter of fact, he may well have never heard of this here blog.  But he has on his website something that comes pretty close to what I said back in November, which he mentions on Dec. 5th.  What's that?

What CNN's doing most of the time on most everything -- ditto New York Times, ditto MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, it isn't journalism anymore. That went way long ago. That's not the news. You think you're getting the news? You turn on CNN and you get a storyline of falsehood after falsehood after falsehood and they call that the news? Then they have a roundtable of guests and the guests opine, and they call that news? There's no news.
What Rush doesn't acknowledge is that power always trumps argument.  Aesop's Fable about the wolf and the lamb illustrates this perfectly.  How does anyone not know this, especially Rush?  You cannot persuade the wolf to stop being a wolf.  Mere argument against a wolf, no matter how well stated, will never make any difference.  The wolf will be a wolf.

In short, you have to start actively doing things to stop the wolves.  Trouble is, guys like Limbaugh don't really ever do anything but talk.  He will shill for the GOP, but he will never support splitting the party up into the grassroots and the establishment.  He just won't do it.  He is all for the party, but the party is controlled by those at the top, who are wolves.  At the very least, he should stop supporting the GOP.  Otherwise, he may as well be one of them.


Micro quadcopter with video cam

I'd like to have one of these gizmos.  I could explore my property without ever getting off my keister.  This may sound supremely lazy, but out there in the boonies, it may be a definite plus to see what you're getting into before getting into it.



A look into the liberal mindset

At the Mahablog, Barbara O'Brien launches in on a discussion about what it is to be a human being.  For a moment there, she almost sounded like a reasonable and intelligent human being.  Then, like the Incredible Hulk, she turns into her green monster mode.

Don't make him mad.
Actually, I can certainly see how people can be defined by their "network", so to speak.  My view is like the ying-yang thing:  people are not the group, people are individuals.  But "no man is an island" either.  It's a duality thing to me.  She seems to think that the group is what defines the person, and that's what leads into a discussion about social issues that left me shaking my head.  It is as if she rejects who she is, what she had just defined in the above paragraphs.  An incredible hulk thing happens:  she identifies with her group as a liberal and starts turning green.

Here's what she's getting into full blown green monster mode:

..explains why so many whites eagerly anticipate black violent reactions to such events as the George Zimmerman or Darren Wilson verdict, because Those People Act That Way. Of course, when whites form violent mobs they think it’s justified, so it’s okay.

When did white people form mobs and then say it was okay to commit any violence?  Also, when "those people" do act that way, why is it wrong to point it out?  Green monster mode, I tell you.  When the green monster mode gets started, self control goes out the window.  She just can't help it.

Also, I challenge where she says that  "whites eagerly anticipate black violent reactions."  Frankly, I'd be happy if they'd stop it with that crap.  I can tell you that I sure as hell don't eagerly anticipate it.  I suspect that a lot of white folks would just as soon that that didn't happen either.  As a matter of fact, I am really getting sick and tired of a lot of blacks out there who seem to think that events like in Ferguson gives them a license to loot and destroy.  If anybody is "eagerly anticipating" any black violence, it's got to be those liberals like O'Brien.

The "war on women" trope falls along the same lines.  It really is getting ridiculous when women seem to be more and more dominant in this society, yet somehow these same women consider themselves as victims.  The pendulum has swung and it hasn't been swinging the white man's way for a long time now.  I can recall how things have changed between the sexes, and it all started in the sixties.  There was this TV show called "The Newlywed Game".  The show's host, Bob Eubanks pointed out how the men and women on his show changed during the time it ran on the air in the sixties and seventies.  The women pretty much came to dominate the men.  It didn't use to be that way when the show first began, as he observed.  In my own experience, whatever Dad said was it and it was final.  Mom pretty much let him run things.  The old way was better.

Oh, and the religious complaint!  That one is rich in irony.  If it weren't for public schools proselytizing for the secular humanist religion, the liberals wouldn't have much of a following.  They use public funds to further their agenda by indoctrinating kids into leftist thinking that sure as hell doesn't like religion very much at all, unless of course, it is their religion.

She concludes by saying this is why people are jerks.  No, the jerks are the ones who listen to this garbage and believe it.  Jerks let other people do their thinking for them.  That's why liberals don't want anybody  to contradict them, they have to fall into line like the jerks they wish everybody would be.  Everybody has to think the same way. It disturbs the "hive mind" to have anybody thinking for themselves.


Nano Crazyfly Drone

You can put a camera on this thing.

COOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!




It doesn't look like this.


Obama administration defies IRS court order

Must prevent truth from being discovered, at all costs...Behind the Black Blog

Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew, Obama’s former White House Chief of Staff, took the documents that were set to be released and now refuses to ever turn them over. His rationale? Lew cannot release information about improper disclosures of confidential taxpayer information because that would be an improper disclosure of confidential taxpayer information.

The enormity of this lie is staggering.  In order to prevent disclosure of damaging information to themselves, the Obama Administration is claiming that they are protecting the confidentiality of taxpayer information, which they have been alleged of violating.  In other words, the bad guys are claiming to be good guys while trying to keep information from being disclosed which proves they are the bad guys.  They are defying a court order while doing this.


Off-grid power system

Previous  Next

This goes in the off-the-grid power subseries.

Turning my attention towards how to power da trailer.

Quite an education, this is.

So far, I've gotten the rudiments of a system thought out.  It would consist of
There's plenty of other hardware needed, but these basics are costly.  About a grand for the panels, over a grand for the batteries, and the inverter is another grand.  Other stuff could add up to yet another grand.  Four thousand bucks, easy.

Get this, for all that money, I will be able to get maybe 2 kilowatt hours of power per day out of it.  That figures at less than 25 cents worth of electricity at the plug when you are on da grid.

Somebody would love to steal this stuff, so you'd have to guard it with your very life.

Update:

May want to add one of these babies.  Honda's EU2000i portable generator.  I have a generator, but it is gasoline powered.  This one is too, but it can be converted to propane if you buy the kit and follow instructions on this video.

To save money, I could scale down to from 2 kwh to just 1 kwh daily.  That would save the money to buy the generator.  Still could be in excess of 3k dollars plus the extra hardware needed to put it all together.

Update:

Some discussion is in order.  The reason the inverter is so costly is that it must accommodate the freezer.  The freezer pulls 1800 watts and this thing will handle that and the surge when it starts up, most likely.

I could scale down from 2 kwh to 1 kwh, but that same freezer may take up close to half of that, if it's just one.  On the other hand, the freezer could be shut off for a few days at a time, and there shouldn't be a problem, although you cannot guarantee that if the food is frozen.

By the way, the freezer may be useful for storing deer meat if I manage to bag one of those.

The trailer could take up as much as 7 kwh by itself if I went all electric.  That's the reason for the solar water heater for warming.  If you could pick up some heat off the generator, this may be useful for heating purposes.  May need a boiler for hot water when the sun doesn't shine.  I was thinking of using an exhaust pipe extension for the generator so as to move the exhaust out of the living area.  Now, if that extension was rigged with a heat exchanger, you can get some hot water out of it to boot.  Warming up during the winter is more of a problem than cooling, I think.  When it's hot, you get power from the sun, and if needed, you can add a swamp cooler and a little extra thingie I thought up with the freezer.  The canopy will keep the hot sun off and prevent heat buildup.

I've got a space heater here that uses 500 watts electric.  If you run that all of the time, it would drain the batteries in a couple of hours.  Can't have that.  The generator (s) could heat warm water to assist in heating, plus the use of the solar heater may add some more, but not all of the time.  If all else fails, you could use an electric blanket and dress very warmly.

Bottom line is that it could cost upwards of 4 grand and it will still be inadequate at times.